God will not let the soul die; it is a force that must act throughout
the eternity before us, as it acted throughout the eternity that
preceded our coming on earth. No physical force ever dies--each force
merely changes its form or direction. Heat becomes motion, motion is
transformed into heat, but the force still exists. It is not possible
then that the soul of man--the subtlest, strongest force of all--should
ever be extinguished. Every analogy that we can see, every fact of
science that we can understand, tells us that the essence which each of
us calls "I" must exist for ever as it has existed from eternity. Let us
think of a sweet change that shall merely divest us of the husk of the
body, even as the moth is divested of the husk of the caterpillar. Space
will be as nothing to the soul--can we not even now transport ourselves
in an instant beyond the sun? We can see with the soul's eye the surface
of the stars, we know what they are made of, we can weigh them, and we
can prove that our observation is rigidly accurate even though millions
of miles lie between us and the object which we describe so confidently.
When the body is gone, the soul will be more free to traverse space than
it is even now.
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